I won’t bring science meeting to Nassau

Recently, in a single parking spot at Baldwin’s Long Island Rail Road station, I was given three separate parking tickets at the same time. The total was close to $400 for parking incorrectly.

This is legalized stealing, because a single ticket could have been written instead of three. One fined me $135 for parking my car in the wrong direction (it was supposed to be head-in). The second was for $135 for not having a local parking permit (the parking space had no such warning). The third was for $105 for not having an inspection sticker (New Hampshire puts such stickers on another part of the car).

The consequences: The venue I was checking out for a scientific meeting will now not take place in Nassau County. I don’t want my participants to risk being levied penalties by the county.

This will be many bellies and many beds that won’t be filled in Nassau restaurants or hotels. As the world learns about Nassau’s shakedown, hotels and restaurants won’t get filled, and people will shop online rather than risk getting a set of parking tickets. This will hurt small-business owners more than anyone.

Peter Tse, Hanover, New Hampshire

Editor’s note: The writer grew up in Baldwin and is a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouth College.

Why not open HOV lanes in some cases?

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I recently encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Long Island Expressway because of an accident. All that time and fuel wasted trying to get to work.

Why don’t overhead signs notify the drivers that, in a case like this, they may use the HOV lane? The officials in charge would look like geniuses, people would get to where they are going, and this would make for happy voters.